I loved Half-Life, consider Half-Life 2 to be one of the best games of all time and I loved both the Half-Life 2 episodes that were released. Like many people, Half-Life: Alyx is a game that I feel is long, long overdue. Now granted it is not the Half-Life 3 that we have been asking for, but this is probably the greatest VR game that has ever been made.
How to Download Half-Life: Alyx
The game can be downloaded from Steam. To start, simply click on the Download button located at the end of this Half-Life: Alyx review.
The Game Review
The game is set after the Combine invasion of Earth but before the events of Half-Life 2. The story is fantastic and Alyx finds herself trying to save her dad, but this leads into her trying to get her hands on Combine superweapon! Alyx is just as likable as she was in Half-Life 2 and playing a game in this series where the protagonist actually talks is quite interesting.
Speaking of talking, you have a friend called Russel. This is the person that is in your ear and he is awesome. You are probably looking at 12 to 15 hours to get through the story so there is a great deal to keep you busy here. Now, let’s get to the gameplay, Half-Life: Alyx immersed me in its world like no other VR game ever has done.
You legit feel like you are in this world. Most of the game feels very much like a Half-Life game and that is a good thing. As this is set before 2, you do not have a gravity gun, but you do have prototype gravity gloves. This was a very, very clever idea and it works well in VR. You reach for what you want, close your fist and you will grab it.
These gloves are a lot of fun to play with. Many of the puzzles that you will be doing ranging from moving something to another place or doing this cool futuristic kind of augmented reality thing are a lot of fun and work very well with the gravity gloves. The gravity gloves are not the only thing at your disposal.
Half-Life: Alyx has some of the best gunplay of any VR game. You do not have a ton of weapons, but the weapons you can be made better. The guns feel fantastic to use and reloading them takes actual skill and each gun reloads differently. It can be a very nervy experience when you need to reload and a bunch of head crabs is closing in on you!
The game is the perfect mixture of puzzle-solving, shooting, and exploration. There are different control methods you can use, but I preferred the one where I used the left stick to move like a regular FPS game. You can just teleport around if you want as well. Speaking of teleporting, this is how you handle getting over jumps, climbing and so on.
A huge part of what made me feel like I was in this world was the world around you. Your hands actually have real-world physics to them. So, if you need to reach into a tight area and grab something. Your hand will not magically phase through it, you have to position your hand just right and you do actually feel like you are there.
I had high expectations for Half-Life: Alyx, but it completely blew them away. I feel that if you like the Half-Life franchise you will love this and even if you did not play the original games, you will still get sucked into this world. This is how VR gaming should be and I really do hope that more developers take note of this.
